<p>In my fridge, there’s a narrow drawer for cold cuts and cheese. In cleaning the fridge the other day, I discovered that some of those packages can slip behind the drawer, never to be seen again. I found cheese, in September 2009, that had been packed in December 2008. (And oddly enough, it wasn’t moldy.)</p>
<p>I also found in my pantry, in September 2009, a bottle of salad dressing (unopened) that had a “use by” date of September 1999. Oops.</p>
<p>This thread cracks me up. I have a jar of Orten Rentenbac…popcorn kernels… can’t even spell it!.. that is 17 years old. I know because I bought it when we moved into this apartment, 17 years ago.</p>
<ol>
<li>A bottle of potato-mushroom sauce, found at Mom’s house last week.</li>
</ol>
<p>LongPrime, that is amazing and disgusting. I dare you to eat it.</p>
<p>1976??eeuuuuu!</p>
<p>Last night I threw away half a bottle of vitamins that expired in 2003. But I’m an amateur compared to you guys.</p>
<p>I’m rolling on the floor laughing. I knew you guys would out-do me.</p>
<p>Definitely things from the 1960s & 1970s found at the grandparents house!</p>
<p>A few years ago, my grandmother found a 50 year old can of lard in her house preparing for a garage sale. The hilarious thing? An antiques collector gladly took it off of her hands for $10.</p>
<p>OP, did you happen to watch the episode of The Doctors this afternoon?? (I think that’s the name of the show - it’s often on when I"m exercising at the fitness center) They had an episode on expired things today!!! This one woman claimed her husband wouldn’t let her thrown anything away - she had things from 1987!!!</p>
<p>Not to worry about the mushroom sauce. My first profession was the food processing industry. I know what bad food smells and looks like. </p>
<p>Personally, I still have a case of quart jars of cherries at Mom’s house, Our own cherries, 1981. </p>
<p>I tend to put food up for times like 01-01-2000, Armageddon, Global Warming, and constipation.</p>
<p>We discarded some lifeboat water a while back when cleaning up a house to rent it out. It was older than I was at the time! Shucks, maybe we should have sold it to Julie’s antique’s collector!</p>
<p>I still have lanolin I got in the hospital delivering my babies who are now nearing the end of their college years, but heck, it doesn’t have an expiration date!</p>
<p>Wouldn’t lanolin go rancid?</p>
<p>And LongPrime, if it smells OK, is it OK to eat?</p>
<p>Actually, I never used lanolin much back then and haven’t had occasion to use it at all since. In any case, would be cautious before trying to ingest anything that is significantly past the pull date.</p>
<p>The military did a study a while back that showed that meds in pill form are still at least 90% effective many, many years past the expiraiton date. There are exceptions, of course and fluids tend to have shorter shelf lives and be less stable. Don’t have ethe cite handy but do know it exists.</p>
<p>Can you tell I’m somewhat of a packrat?</p>
<p>abasket, that’s pure coincidence! I started this thread because . . . . ummm . . . . I have no life. :(</p>
<p>I still have the last jar of zucchini refrigerator pickles that my father put up…he will be gone two years in December and I am sure he had his last garden long before that. I don’t have the heart to throw it away, so as long as there is room for them in the fridge they will be there…</p>
<p>Don’t have an actual date to report, but based on prior experience, take a look at your spice drawers for some real old items. Medicine cabinets are also full of long-expired things.</p>
<p>Yea, I bought most of my spices back when I was away at school & still haven’t tossed them (tho have thrown out a few). They are decades old. When my in-laws died, they left all their spices. Not sure how many decades old those are either.</p>
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</p>
<p>Generally, the cost of food replacement is small when compared to cost of hospitalization or death. The sauce was thrown out, without smell or taste.</p>
<p>melbert - good call!</p>
<p>I just checked and found prescription drugs from a surgery in 2002. Now what do I do with them?</p>